290 



May it therfore please your Matie, in consideration of the pre- 

 misses ; of your Maties wonted goodness and clemency. To com- 

 miserate the sad condition of your poor supplicant, by granting him 

 Liberty to return to his Family, upon his giving Baill to appear 

 when and where Your Matie shall be graliouslie pleased to appoint 

 and in the mean time begs your Maties allowance for his subsistance 

 till your Maties further pleasure be known. 



And your Pef (as in duty bound^ 

 shall ever pray, &c. 



M. Bruce. 



POSTSCRIPT. 



I was obliged to part with this Memoir without having seen 

 D'Israeli's " Inquiry into the Literary and Political Character of 

 James I. ; nor was I able to obtain a copy of that work till 

 now. I hoped to derive some valuable hints from that aoute and 

 interesting writer ; and feared that I might have been forestalled, 

 and be suspected of plagiarism. These hopes and fears, so natu- 

 rally arising from the similarity of our subject, and object in writ- 

 ing, proved equally groundless ; for this coincidence has produced 

 no sameness of illustration. This arose from D'Israeli's dwelling 

 chiefly on the literary talents and works of James, liis political 

 conduct in England, and his private character ; while I had fortu- 

 nately waved any attempt to illustrate the first of these topics, and 

 was led by my immediate purpose to enlarge, more particularly, on 

 the Scottish period of his reign, without undertaking tlie defence of 

 his personal failings. There is still room for expatiating on all these 



